Clothing: We Need To Talk About Palace

Famed for its iconic triangle logo and reserved for the ultra-cool, the “Palace” skateboarding brand has taken the world by storm. Worn by teenagers, their dads and stars such as Drake, Jay-z and Kylie Jenner, Palace is dominating ‘90’s inspired nostalgia clothing.

Palace founder Lev Tanju discussed the brand’s broad appeal in an interview with The Guardian.  “Dads come in and buy shit, it makes me so happy… we have sons and dads coming in. I’m like ‘yes’ – because Dad wants to be cool at work.” Palace is so popular that almost everything on its website has sold out, and it can now be seen on the sideline of every hipster Dad’s Sunday morning five-a-side football team.

Tanju launched the skating brand in 2009 after spending 10 years after college “just skating and doing fun shit”. Casually designing skateboards for his flatmates turned into a global business that has now been listed by “Business of Fashion” as one of the 500 most influential fashion companies.

Palace is both street culture cool and teenage humour, and this is no clearer than in the naming of the company.  “It’s called Palace,” Tanju told Style.com , “because that’s the name given to the houses we live in as they have all generally been shitholes”. Lev’s sense of humour is evident throughout the Palace brand, from garments names such as “basically a jogger” to garment descriptions: “white cap, red wine, I come alive, in das nigh time”. So now, you can look street and relevant but with that subtle sense of irony and cynicism.

Palace specialises in street wear from tracksuits to knitwear and jackets, selling from an online site as well as from their shop in Soho. New season launches have customers from around the globe queuing down the road to sample the new collection. Its products  embody ‘90s nostalgia, from teenagers who like the idea of retro cool to people who were actually around during that time and want to relive their youth. Palace’s deep-rooted nostalgia and ‘90s inspired sub-culture was most likely inspired by Tanju’s own childhood which he calls “a banging time to think about”.

The brand’s ties with this subculture were further explored by collaborations with brands such as Adidas, Reebok, and Umbro. Some of those items were sold through the clothing brand Supreme, which also has links to the nostalgia-esque subculture. Lev says these collaborations were partly inspired by this desire to look back longingly to his youth. “I thought, why don’t I like anything British? I’m really into English clothing and weird things that happen in England, like terrace football culture. I wanted to make stuff like that, that’d look English. We wanted to do football shirts with Umbro, and we wanted to work with Reebok — what I wore as a kid.”

Lev Tanju has created a brand that is loved by young and old. It is a brand that combines designer and streetwear and takes us back to a time when things just seemed cooler. Unlike many other brands, Palace can appeal to both young London skaters and retired football fans but it is also seen on Rihanna, who couldn’t be further from the traditional London skater.

From millionaires to millennials, Palace represents different things to different people, allowing them to express themselves in a way that few brands can. Palace is a special kind of excellent.

By Ella Neish

The post Clothing: We Need To Talk About Palace appeared first on Felix Magazine.